Warmer
by cafeanna
Summary: God locks him up in an ice casket and this time He leaves him with his memories. Results may vary. [Ryo/Akira]


**title:** Warmer

**genre: **romance / hurt / comfort / horror

**pairings:** ryo/akira, miki/miki

**warnings: **kinda cracky, will remain this way, just wanted to post this

* * *

God locks him up in an ice casket and this time He leaves him with his memories.

Results may vary.

* * *

When he finally breaks free, sunlight burning through his ice sarcophagus, he can feel his body beginning to drink in the reedy warmth of the sun. The weather shifts rapidly, or slowly. He's not sure anymore. Spring bleeds to summer bleeds to him. He relishes the heat, breaks himself free, and lays out on that forest floor, strewed out like an animal carcass awaiting teeth.

Bloodied and wet and animal, it takes a long time before the memories begin to drift in. Even then, only fractions, instances, moments, like a stain-glass window. Every piece making a much larger, more beautiful picture.

He wonders what time he woke up in.

How much has changed? How old is his physical form?

How old is Akira?

Where is Akira?

Akira.

He rolls over in the mud, his limp wings dragging behind him as tries to remember how to move them, how to operate his body. He lays a moment more, a year more, sapped of energy, but the anger of being locked up, the anger of his memories—the bone-deep hate in Akira's eyes—keeps him grounded.

* * *

Of course, he never has to wonder. The more he moves, the more he remembers. Being locked in the ice with the rest of his legion is new, yes, but the world beginning anew, fighting Akira to the death, is not.

This has happened many, many times before.

Always a different time, but the place is always the same.

Once he gets his wings in working order, he flies to Japan and begins his journey.

* * *

The year is 2026, the world population is simmering down to the lows after the millennial generation took a break from popping out two or six kids a mated pair. Still, cities are full and bustling and Ryo wants more than anything to reclaim his upscale hotel flat, but in this cycle—yes, cycle will be the new word for this—he is not rich like he once was.

However, he is very sure in one cycle before the last, he was homeless and living in the woods.

Despicable.

But, anyway, Akira is—

Ryo watches from the crowd as a pack of distance runners race along the narrow strip of road marked off for the race. It's not a relay. Not like last time. But he watches as two girls, one with a long silky ponytail and another with a pageboy cut whip by, shoulder to shoulder. Trailing behind them are a couple more runners, but only one catches Ryo's eye.

Short and thin, with narrow shoulders and narrower hips, thin legs and a look of determination set in his gaze that Ryo distinctly remembers last seeing when he had been trying to rip off one of Ryo's wings. Savage, blood-thirsty, _beautiful_.

He zips past the bulkier runners, for once his thinnest and small frame are an advantage. All his muscle he carries in his legs.

—Akira is a college student.

* * *

Introductions are easy, Ryo still has his enigmatic personality, his honeyed words, his pretty eyes and his devil's smile. But, Akira is different. This is different.

And although Akira is kind and cute and welcoming to him—new transfer student to campus, fresh from the States, or Paris, or Germany, or somewhere blond—there is a cautiousness to his kindness. The kind of skittish alley cat mannerisms of someone who has been hurt before and hurt badly.

This is not _his _Akira, but it is.

All Akiras have been different variants, different flavors of the same.

His doe-eyes, his tentative, but brilliant smile, his feeble, beautiful body that Ryo wants to _lick—_

Akira is his, but different. Then, again so is Ryo.

"You look familiar," Akira says after a pocket of silence. He scratches behind his ear where his long hair crests over his nape. He laughs, easy and boyish. Intoxicating. "I'm sorry. Have we met before?"

Ryo feels his throat constrict. "I don't think so," he lies and this time it burns.

* * *

Akira takes his hand outside. "You're cold," he whispers, eyes narrowing at Ryo's lily-white hands as if trying to puzzle them out. "Why are you always so cold?"

Ryo thinks of millennia encased in ice, forced into a ceaseless slumber and the _ache _of his past failures clawing down his back. He thinks he'll never quite be over it. The anxiety of being locked away like that again is almost too much sometimes he can barely breath. He lays awake at night in his dark room sometimes, screaming, clawing, wanting, but unable to remedy the nightmare.

"Cold hands, warm heart." Miki says mildly and Akira cheers with her sentiment.

It doesn't escape his notice that Akira doesn't let go of his hand, and even tucks it into his coat pocket, as if for safe keeping. It makes him feel warmth for the first time in a long time. The curling spirals of it coil through him as Akira's fingers flex between his. The dry pads of his palms, the callous of his fingers, the smooth shells of his nails.

They continue to walk, Ryo's fingers tangled with Akira's, as they listen to whatever story Miki is telling.

* * *

Ryo only has to worry about Miki's proximity to Akira for a nanosecond before the girl with a long ponytail struts into the bar, grabs her face and proceeds to shove her tongue down the star whats-her-talent's throat. The two of them tangle up in each other between greetings in some vaguely obscene show.

Akira politely diverts his gaze to his sake glass, humming to himself as his cheeks fill with color. The red against his dark skin, makes a freckle on his cheek stand out.

It's cute. He's cute. Akira is being cute.

He catches Ryo staring after a second and smiles, wide and embarrassed. "Sorry, they're, um, newly together and all."

_I would rather Miki rides the exhibitionist with double-d's than you, _he doesn't say. Feeling wicked and triumphant, Ryo leans forward, eyes hooded and voice drifting low and flirty from his mouth to the shell of Akira's pinkened ear. It's exhilarating, being so close, smelling the sweat and the heat and the musk of him.

"So, you're single then?"

Akira's full-body shiver appeals to him in other ways.

* * *

After the bars, Akira takes his hand again when they're walking back to his car. The newly christened couple are tilting ahead, more inebriated and singing to the dark blue sky. Ryo recognizes the song by the rhythm and hums along.

"You don't have to do that, you know." He mumbles and Akira looks at him, cheeks coloring that darling shade of pink.

"Oh, I know," he laughs, nerves working up in his throat. "It's just—it feels natural, I guess? Like I said, I can't get this idea out of my head that I know you from somewhere."

Ryo tightens his grip when it feels like Akira might let him go. He feels magnanimous when he says, "Perhaps we met in a past life."

"Do you believe in that sort of thing, Asuka?" Akira's eyes are wide and bright, like the stars that the city lights try to smog out. Ryo feels his throat tighten with want. He should not have made that joke, it was fleeting humor, and a touch too dark for even him.

There's something different about this form, he knows. Previously, he had been too cold with Akira. Even when he longed for him, he denied love and want and shunned his beloved friend aside until he was holding his dying body in his arms. He feels softer now. Calmer.

_Must be age, _he thinks and unlocked the car door for Akira, lingering on the passenger side. "You can call me Ryo, if you wish." He can taste the words, as if he had said them a hundred times—he probably had—and feels comforted when Akira smiles again.

"Thank you, Ryo-kun."

* * *

They separate from the girls after long, the two getting caught in a beer pong contest with a rival sorority and needing to defend a title with their sisters.

Ryo is comfortable to just walk with Akira. Nothing but them on the city streets, shoulder to shoulder as they poke and peak at every shop or café they pass.

It's fall. The season of coats and scarves, preparations for winter and bedding down. The slide of cold ghosts over his skin, icy fingers against the nape of his neck, the plains of his cheeks, the pulse of his wrists. The chill that runs through Ryo makes him itch with the desire for someone warm, someone like Akira, who he could wrap around himself and fall into with the fervor of a pleasant dream.

He is not sick to say he has these thoughts as they are natural and healthy.

He is sick to say the frequency for which he has them. Every part of him wants every part of Akira. Every freckle, every dimple, every wrinkle—he wants to devour him like a whole almond and swallow him down. Food enough to fill the emptiness inside him.

He wants to burrow into Akira's warmth, his comfort, his naivety, his cheer.

He wants to live and love him like he never got the chance to.

"Hey, let's go in here. I feel bad I'm not taking you to any of the good bars on your first weekend in town." Akira points at a dark painted sign that Ryo can scarcely read, but he recognizes, instantly. In his bones, in his guts, in his teeth.

Sabbath.

His mouth forms the words before he can stop them. "Sure."

* * *

It's a bloody mess, but Akira gets attacked by demons again.

This time it's not of his doing and it pisses him off, he nearly transforms in a righteous fury to _rip _into those sorry demons, but Akira—literally—beats him to it.

He gets knocked back in the blast of Akira's lunge, sending his body careening towards a wall. He twists his own damn ankle and dislocates his shoulder for his trouble, but gets set up good and pretty to watch Akira's Devilman form raze the nightclub.

Ryo recognizes the screams and shouts of the demon prince's name and wants to roll his eyes despite the pain. Amon cannot keep his claws out of Akira, but as soon as his sorry ass gets sucked into his vessel; he is tamed back into submission, letting Akira sap his power with his goodness.

Maybe he is running from Silene.

Fuckin' Silene.

Ryo is pissed.

It's been so long that he has forgotten that demons do exist in this world. It seems that not even God can prevent that.

* * *

They get burgers afterward and, as Akira hungrily shoves two in his mouth at once, Ryo can only watch in mute fear and contemplation. "Ryo," Akira manages around a mouthful of burger and fries. "Are you . . . are you s_ure_, you're okay?"

Ryo ices a swelling bruise on his shoulder and turns his attention back to his laptop, that somehow survived the night's activities. "Yeah, I'm just looking up how to pop my shoulder back into my socket." Akira makes a choking noise. "I'm kidding."

He is not.

"Ryo," Akira says with determination and a decisiveness he has never seen before. Akira frowns, displeased. "I'm taking you to the hospital."

"Take me to the hospital and I'll burn your Anatomy homework." Akira still has the energy to look aghast, but Ryo can hardly enjoy it. His ankle is _burning._

"I don't care. 'M taking you to the hospital."

* * *

They go to the hospital, Ryo fuckin' hates it.

Akira pastes stickers on his face and tries to be cute.

The night-nurse calls them boyfriends when she wraps Ryo's ankle, and Ryo has to give Akira his keys to drive him home.

It's not the worst way to end a night.

* * *

Now that he's paying attention, Akira's physical changes seem almost obscene in comparison to his older, thinner, human body. He requests that Akira take a couple days off school, and Akira agrees, but then forgets and runs through the courtyard five to noon like he's Scooby Doo or some shit in order to make it to Anatomy on time.

Ryo wants to slam his head into his desk.

He's working on his paper for his Philosophy of Western Religion class—he wants to fuckin' choke, but the professor adores him and scholarly work seemed to be his crutch last cycle—and everyone is talking about the hot new guy in the nursing department.

As he shoots off a quick text to Akira, in all caps, because he is pissed, he can only wonder if he can anonymously donate cadavers to the university.

**Ryo: 12:34 pm: **ummmmm the fuck are you doing?**  
Ryo: 12:34 pm: **I thought we agreed you weren't coming to school today?

**Ryo: 12:35 pm: **DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT YOU CAN'T GET JACKED LIKE THAT WITHOUT SOME SERIOUS PLASTIC SURGERY OR dRugS?

**Ryo: 12:35 pm: **everyone is talking about you!

Akira leaves him on _read_, the motherfucker, and Ryo consigns himself to editing his last two pages before checking his phone again.

**Akira: 12:40 pm: **:P

Ryo is boiling.

**Ryo: 12:40 pm: **THAT IS NOT EVEN RELEVANT ANYMORE YOU FUCkWAD

* * *

Ryo is annoyed and embittered and angry, but Akira shoves him up against the kitchen island, bracketing him up against the newly polished granite, leaving fingerprints like a crime scene, his breath catches in his throat. One moment kissing and the next, Akira is digging his nails in, pushing him away. Ryo's head is spinning from the shifting elements, but the push against the counter does not quite register until it does.

Akira is staring at him. His eyes are tearing.

"I _do _know you," Akira whispers to the space between them, what little left there is. His breath is warm and soft against Ryo's mouth, just a hair's breath from his and Ryo is _aching _for it. For the thing he wants most.

He tilts his chin up despite himself and feels Akira's twitch of interest against his thigh. Heavy against his thigh._ Christ_.

Akira's fingers curl around his skinny wrists, shackles of flesh and bone and demon blood.

Ryo resists the urge to bite his own lip.

"You know me," Ryo tries to lift a brow, smirk, cock his head, but Akira is so close, close enough that no barriers can be built. Ryo feels weak. "You remember me too."

"I do." Akira says and the salty, cold trails of tears touch his mouth, gather at the hollow of his throat, pool at the neck his shirt. His hands travel from Ryo's wrists to his face, unburned by the glow of angel-fire. He feels precious and delicate and terrible in his hands, a terror of pain and pleasure. "I do. Ryo—Ryo, you—you were crying."

There is a jagged breath.

Words come out in a rush.

"I killed you, hundreds of times I've killed you." Ryo says, looking up into those watery black eyes, the ring of gold around the iris shimmering in the tears. "I have never got the chance to love you. Not once."

Akira sobs on his shoulder, the deft press of their hips a wrong invitation to such an emotional moment, but Ryo clutches him back. The feeling of detachment, of distance, of cold starts to erode in his chest, shimmering to something deeper.

"I want to love you this time," he whispers even if Akira cannot hear him. He runs his fingers over the ridge of his spine, across the muscled plains of his back. "I want to love you and stay alive."

* * *

this was originally written on 2/8/18, shortly after watching _DMCB _for the first time. i planned for it to be a chapter fic, but i like it better like this. i wanted a tortured, war-worn Ryo finding a surer Akira, so that's what i did. with comedy, class and, of course, ambiguous endings.

let me know your thoughts, theories, opinions in the comments below.

-cafeanna


End file.
